The present invention relates to a novel pill or tablet dispenser which is used for dispensing pills at given specified periods. It contains an indicator mechanism for designating the prescribed time periods for taking the pills. A dispenser of this type is particularly applicable for the use of those drugs that are to be taken at regular intervals over an extended period of time, such as, birth control pills.
Dispensers of this type have been available, but usually permit removal of the tablet package and replacement with a substitute package without the user's knowledge.
Additionally, in the case of birth control pills, it is desirable that the first pill in the prescribed regimen be taken on a specific day, which with said pills is a time predetermined by the onset of the user's menstrual period. This, of course, can occur on any day of the week, and thus it is desirable that the indicator mechanism designating the days the pills in the dispenser are to be taken be adjustable so that the indicator can be positioned to coincide with the prescribed day of the week the first pill of the series is to be taken.
There are currently available on the market a number of different types of pill and tablet dispensers, such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,276,573, 3,651,927, 3,743,085, 3,800,940, 3,904,075, and assignee's U.S. Pat. No. 4,165,709. The dispensers disclosed in these patents are designed so that the user will be notified to take the tablet on a prescribed basis, such as, a daily basis, by providing an indicator that denotes the days of a week, but no provision is available for enabling one to preset the specific day of the week that the first tablet of a differing series of pills is to be taken in a fashion as simple and efficient as the dispenser disclosed in this application. It can be appreciated that if the indicator mechanism is not adjustable and is preset to require that the first pill of a regimen made of different pills is to be taken on a Sunday, and the user should take the first pill of a series on a Wednesday, the user could be at risk for a period of time, which is, to say the least, highly undesirable.
In applicant's application entitled "Tablet Dispenser" filed simultaneously with the instant application, there is a novel tablet dispenser which provides for the setting of the taking of the first pill of a series on any day of the week the user desires. In this dispenser the first tablet of the prescribed regimen is pre-positioned to be dispensed from the dispenser and the indicator mechanism is adjustable so that it can be set to indicate any day of the week the first tablet is to be taken. This tablet dispenser, while generally acceptable, has the aforementioned disadvantage in that the tablet package can be removed and replaced with a substitute package without the user's knowledge. In addition, the particular design of the indicator mechanism also permits inadvertent or accidental resetting of the time the tablets are to be taken by permitting movement of the indicator mechanism relative to the dispenser at any time after one or more tablets have been taken. These missing features, while normally not a problem, could be misused in that other tablets could be substituted for those normally sold with the dispenser and the user could get an inferior product, or different tablets, which would not serve the intended purpose. In the case of the movable indicator mechanism, if it were moved accidentally, the user could get confused and miss the taking of a pill or take it at the wrong time.
The instant application discloses several embodiments of a dispenser device which has advantages over those previously available including the presetting of the day on which the first pill is to be taken while preventing accidental movement of the indicating mechanism after it has been preset and the user has begun to use the pills from the dispenser, ready removal of the pill from the dispenser, compactness, and simplicity in operation and/or it does not have the disadvantage of permitting the pill package to be readily removed from the dispenser.